FitBloggin’ 14: Friday Sessions, Food & Events

This is a recount of my experience at Fitbloggin’ 14.  Read about the pre-conference events HERE.

I’m not a bootcamp person, at least not yet, so I was up at 6 amFriday morning but it was for the hotel gym. Denise was there already and I got 30 minutes in before heading up to the conference for breakfast.

The gym was pretty good as hotel gyms go and I really appreciated the refrigerated face towels for afterwards along with fruit and cold water!

I had eggs, bacon, a few potatoes and fruit for breakfast.  This was so much better than my choices last year where I must have a couple of pastries each morning.  Oh, and lots of coffee!

Before I knew it, it was time to head off for my first session of the day. It was hard to pick just one from the four offered but I selected the small group discussion, Blogging Over 40, led by Gail from Go! Go! Gail!.  I really enjoyed the discussion and am glad to know I’m not the only one that feels older bloggers are sometimes overlooked.

It’s ironic since many of us are at a position in our lives where we have more discretionary income than ever and a larger circle of people to influence.

My next session was a crossfit style workout . Yes, I know I said crossfit is not for me but I the instructor, Andrea from I’m Perfect Life, convinced me to give it a try.

After warming up with burpees (my least favorite exercise) we split into groups of four.  My awesome group is in the picture above.  Our WOD (workout of the day) was:

The only thing I didn’t do my share of was the push-ups.  My teammates made up for it!  It was really fun and we were the second team done.  If I thought crossfit was always like that, I’d be there in a second.

We had a break and I ran up to the room and showered in time for the next session.

This small group discussion was titled “Use Your Words to Change Your Life” and was led by one of my favorite twins, Alexandra from Fun and Fit.  I really liked that she educated us on a method to separate emotions from behaviors before we got to the discussion and evaluating real life situations.

Then it was time for a lighter subject which was lunch hosted by Run Disney.

We had a beautiful buffet of vegetables, fruits, meats and I would say breads except there wasn’t a gluten-free bread.  I just added the meat to the top of my salad and moved on!  We took our plates into the ballroom where the stage was set up for Run Disney.

As I was finishing my meal, we learned about the various programs sponsored by Disney focusing on athletics including the runs through the parks.

Then we had a special guest.  I didn’t line up to get my picture taken with Mickey but it was fun to see the excitement in the room!  Too soon it was time for the next sessions.  I selected the Culinary session hosted by California Avocados.

We learned about the nutritional benefits of avocados (one of my favorite foods) and the winner of the pre-conference recipe contest was revealed.  Alyssa from Double Chin Diary was the grand prize winner with her delicious avocado tarts.  We learned how to make them AND got to taste!

My last session before the evening was Monetizing and Affiliate Marketing by Sarah from ShareASale.  This is an area I want to work on when it fits into  the content.

We then had a break before the evening activities.  I met Deb from Weight for Deb and Liz from Prior Fat Girl for dinner and we headed across the street to the Moon River Brewing Company.  I had an organic, grass-fed beef burger (no bun) with sweet potato fries for just $8!  It was the best burger I’ve had in ages.

I also had a hard cider which was refreshing in the humid weather.  We headed back in time for Ignite!  I saw about half the presentations which were very good.  My favorite was “Hip Hop Blog Soup” by Dre from Mission Meltdown.

If you’re reading this via email, click through and watch the Youtube video! It was a fun night but I was worn out and missed the mastermind session at 10 pm. The next day would be another 6 am morning.